To Love a God
by Ahsurika
Summary: "All she wants for me is the best, and I'm grateful to her, forever and always. But she has to face my wish. She has to know how I feel." The final confrontation between Homura and Madoka. Post-Rebellion, oneshot.


_Tick._

Because of what she is, the goddess sees it all.

 _Tick. Tick._

Every time she saved the dark-haired girl, flying in with a bow of light and a pink-frilled dress and furrowed brow, each time dying in the scattered debris of a storm-shattered ruin.

 _Tick. Tick._

The dark-haired girl's promise to her, and all she did to fulfill it. The jumps, the pain, the endless hunt and reset clocks. Futile arguments with their friends, words poured like sand into a bottomless glass as the realization festered inside her like a tumor, a noxious seed that grew into something terrible and poisonous.

A single shot from a shuddering pistol.

 _Tick. Tick._

One last time, the dark-haired girl's efforts for nothing. Broken, beaten, battered. Giving up, soul gem flooding with ink toward its inevitable conclusion…until _she_ arrived and made the wish that turned a schoolgirl into the divine.

That forced this very schoolgirl to leave her friends behind.

 _Tick. Tick._

Their reunion, joyous, as she saved the dark-haired girl from drowning in the well of despair. The Incubators tried to entrap her but she outsmarted them, she and her friends turned it around, they rescued the dark-haired girl from an endless fate worse than death.

And then —

 _Tick._

 _And then. I reached out my hand, but the dark-haired girl was a demon._

Because of what she is, she can see them now, fighting deep in the twisted mists of the demon's labyrinthine reality. Mami, rips lining her outfit but not a single golden hair out of place, unleashes an infinite stream of bullets at an infinite horde of squirming, screaming forms. Ruthlessness blazes in her hard eyes to mirror the rapid flash of her rifles. As the eldest of the team, she made it her duty to protect them, and she will see that duty to the end.

Sayaka, fury in her face, leaps to and fro, her sword slashing through the writhing mass of shadow and ink that reaches out to envelop her. She's lost something precious and gained something different. It's obvious in the way she fights, the way she thrusts and spins her sword about instead of sweeping it in broad, precise strokes. Not a conductor's baton but a weapon of faith. Her desire has changed, subtly: her heart's wish points no longer at a boy and his violin, but toward apple cores and sardonic prayers.

Kyoko is always by her side, her scarlet dress and hair disguising well her wounds as her spear twirls protectively around the blue-haired crusader. A half-smile lights her face even as she bleeds, blood mingling with sweat in a river that drains her strength but not her will. This is the storybook ending she never thought could exist for her, battling by the side of the one she holds dear, and even death, when it comes, will be a triumph.

They're fighting for their goddess, she knows, for the Law they follow and the leader they believe in, and they're strong. The fate lines that bound so many realities to her had affected them as well. Their varied hopes and wishes, the product of repeating the same month over and over, have complicated and enriched the reasons they became magical girls so much that they're now some of the strongest the goddess has ever known.

They don't stand a chance against the demon.

Oily fabric floats about it, pale purples and sickly greens shimmering at its liquid edges. Within the shadows, the demon's tall body stands proud and erect, carved from marble and clothed in smoke. An aristocratic wave directs the neverending stream of familiars, encircling the trio of magical girls in crisp patterns. From this distance, it's clear that the demon is holding back. Not out of reluctance to harm, but to wring out from them every last drop of hope.

The goddess can end it.

She is the Law of Cycles. Her wish, the wish that freed all magical girls from their doom, binds her tighter than any chain. When a magical girl falls, Madoka destroys the darkness and takes the girl, rescuing them from eternal suffering. This one embraced the shadows in her heart and laid claim to her despair, commanding it, shaping it. Girl and demon, desperate wish and triumphant despair, both must be destroyed because they are one and the same.

And because of who she is, Madoka doesn't know if she can carry out her own wish.

This isn't just a demon. This is _her_.

Kyoko is stabbed again, a spear flung from three hundred yards picking her up by the gut and hurling her into the wall. Blood splatters behind her in a grisly painting that frames her torn dress and wild hair. Sayaka calls out and tries to leap to her motionless friend's aid, but she's stumbling, a multitude cuts draining her of strength as the shadowy blades — held by cackling familiars, Madoka can see them clearly — flying around her duck her flailing sword and open the skin on her arms, her legs, her neck. The demon doesn't hesitate: in a blink it is behind the falling crusader, arms encircling Sayaka's body in a lover's embrace —

Madoka gasps. "Homura, _don't_!"

As if the smoky shadow hears her, it drops its prey and looks up, hair drawing back like a curtain to reveal the sorrowful face of Madoka's best friend.

It's almost worse that she looks the same as she always has. Her parted lips carry a cruel twist, an inviting entrance to a forbidden labyrinth, and her eyes blaze with the dark fire of battle, but it's the same face that has looked at her with the full kaleidoscope of human emotion over dozens of timelines. The girls they've been to each other, the allies and friends and strangers and enemies — Homura's face holds it all, framed with love, and pity, and the zealotry of the despairing disciple.

"So you came after all," Homura murmurs, and Madoka hears the regret-laden words as if her best friend stood right next to her and not half a dimension away.

" _Madoka, stay away!_ " Sayaka's voice warbles faintly, distant, as if heard from underwater. She's crawling on undulating waves of white thread, a wide crimson trail marking her path. Not far from her struggle, Kyoko shimmies on the spear that pins her, twisting her innards around the glistening haft. " _Madoka, you can't save her! You have to run!_ "

Homura's eyes narrow. At a snap of her fingers Sayaka jolts sharply, her spine cracking with a ripple like gunfire as her body folds backward on itself.

Kyoko screams, a bellow of anguish and hatred thickened by the blood that fills her lungs and mouth. She finally pushes herself off the spear, falling to the ground just as a swarm of enemies descends upon her. A chorus of gunfire temporarily hurls them back as Mami tries to hold them at bay, but the golden veteran can't win with her attention and ribbons divided. Slowly the rifle-fire slackens, petering out as its source is overwhelmed.

Three naked soul gems fall to the interdimensional labyrinth's floor. The demon's jagged mouth promises eternity.

 _No._

Something swells within Madoka, a great vastness that is more than power or energy, a wholeness with an ever-expanding void. She can't contain it, can't measure it, and she doesn't want to because she is _breathing_ this universe into being. Her soul tears through Homura's labyrinth like a hot knife through butter, ripping back the blinds of this carefully controlled reality and exposing the demon's nightmares to the dawn. An orchestra of creation builds in her ears until the cacophony is all that exists —

Bereft of its supports, the world crumbles into darkness.

###

 _Her heart is breaking._

 _It's not as if she hadn't known this day would come — quite the contrary. Fate had decreed it the moment she had tied Madoka's ribbon, gentle fingers brushing that loose pink hair with the promise of war. Perhaps earlier, when she had dared rise against her loving god. Her friend's divinity could only be caged for so long because it was a part of the girl herself, a part that Homura herself had inadvertently nurtured by protecting her month after month, timeline after timeline. That much is clear to her, now: Madoka the goddess and Madoka the girl were one and the same, for the wish made the Law and the ideal the action, each reinforcing the other in an infinite loop of revolving galaxies, bright stars, and the hollow emptiness of knowing that one's friend is gone forever._

 _None of that matters._

 _She is about to raise arms against the girl she swore to shield._

 _And she will do it without hesitation. She has chosen her role in this drama and set the stage because Madoka must decide to_ live _. For decide she must: though girl and goddess are the same being, they cannot coexist. Here, in this infinite void between worlds, she will force Madoka to choose. One last time._

 _Rising curtains lift the darkness, revealing an unending landscape of harsh white light. She cries out without voice, her soul curling defensively to guard against the opening salvo, but it's not an attack. The goddess is moving the stage. Even as she hides her eyes from the blinding light it fades, revealing the dark blues of vacuum punctuated by cherry blossom stars. This isn't what the universe looks like in any semi-physical reality. This is how Madoka chooses to see it._

 _She falls for Madoka all over again, even as she hates her for bringing the two of them to the goddess' plane of existence. Madoka is no strategist — she's simply choosing the battleground that feels right. Then Homura catches herself, her heart full to bursting, because of course Madoka doesn't even view this as a field of war. To her, Homura knows, she's taking her best friend home. Into_ her _home._

This is my advantage. She is stronger by far, but she does not want to fight me.

 _And this is an unacceptable weakness. She cannot show mercy, cannot play favorites. If she does, she will fall._

As she did to me.

As she will once more.

###

The goddess exhales the heat of a thousand suns, inhales the hopes of every being that has ever lived. Her skin tingles with the energy of a universe racing away from itself. When the magical girl reordered the universe and became hope itself, she also became its rage.

Homura laughs, a demure chuckle into slender fingers.

"Such a stern face!" she says theatrically. Disgust streaks her twisted expression. "We both know it's not real. The goddess would strike without mercy, and you? You have always held me blameless. So what is this glare? Neither you nor she can intimidate me with half-measures. Spare us both."

Madoka shakes her head. "You have it wrong, Homura." She lifts her hands, weighing words as heavy as dying stars. "I'm the Law of the Cycle. There's no difference between it and me. I wished it, and I am it. It's what I always wanted to be."

She's speaking from her heart. When she became a magical girl, all she did was gain the power to find what she had always sought.

Homura spits. Smoky darkness emanates from her, shrouding the night around her. "Don't you _dare_ lie to me," she hisses, freezing galaxies in their orbits. "I was _there_ , I was _there_ when you told me to keep you from making a contract, to save you. And I _did_."

 _A girl on the beach, shaking violently, the screech of a shattering heart wrenching itself from her lips._

 _BANG._

The goddess' rage crashes and breaks on unassailable walls of truth. A shimmer passes across space-time as uncertainty laps at her heart. "I-I said those words out of despair," Madoka protests, her voice weak. She knows how hollow her honesty sounds, and Homura doesn't fail to pick up on it.

"There's _truth_ in despair, Madoka," Homura replies. She steps closer to Madoka, violet gaze full of yearning. "I've felt it. You've regretted becoming a magical girl ever since that time, but you don't know how to escape those bonds by yourself. Let me help you."

"You chained me!" Madoka yells, divine anger boiling up once more.

"You chained yourself!" Homura screams back. The infinite space between them trembles with tension. "You wanted to save everyone, but you _can't_. If you try, you're not _you_ anymore. You can't live a normal life. You can't live _any_ life. And there's no world where the goddess can be happy."

She crosses her arms, resolute. "I swore never to allow that to happen, and I have the strength to see it through. You —"

"My first wish was to revive a cat."

Homura cuts off. Madoka swallows hard in the sudden silence. "When I first contracted, before you met me, before I knew anything about what it would mean. I didn't plan to become this, but after I'd learned everything that I had, I chose it." The cycle is in the galaxies all around her, every member of every species that has ever existed living and dying and living again. "I can't keep people from feeling pain, and I...I don't want to. I just want to be there to answer it, so that it doesn't win. So that prayers are rewarded."

The darkness surrounding Homura wavers and fades, leaving the girl herself standing, looking terribly forlorn. "You know about me. Everything there is to know. And?"

Madoka gestures to herself and the shining universe on which they stand. "This...has always been what I dreamed of, Homura, my friend," Madoka continues. _When you protected me, you gave me a chance to heal._ "I've grown and I've suffered, but now I'm here and it's still _me_. You can't change that without rejecting who I am."

The impact of such unambiguous sentiment hits Homura so hard that Madoka can feel the pain of it. Blood drains from the tall girl's face, leaving a ghost framed by long black hair. A shell, still filled with the power of conviction but pierced by the sharp blade of epiphany. "I love you, and...I was..."

"I know," Madoka whispers, guilt and shame constricting her throat. She can't ease Homura's suffering, not without compromising everyone else. Tears run down into her smile. "I'm sorry, Homura. I'm so sorry."

"All I ever wished for was for you…"

"I know."

The universe halts.

For a neverending moment, there is no battle against entropy, no entropy _at all_.

Then the colors deepen, solidify. Nebulae spin stars from atomic threads, galaxies knit solar systems into elliptical paths, and gravity pulls once more. Feeling a brush against her senses, Madoka glances down at herself to see that her uniform has been replaced by a dress of the purest white.

Homura watches. Her expression is an event horizon, its depths impossible to explore or understand.

"Madoka."

There's a softness in the word Madoka has never heard before, not in all their timelines and worlds. A quivering, unbreakable note she's never heard from her best friend and strongest foe.

"Tell me. Would you do anything for happiness? For your friends? Your family?" The murmurs drift across eons, almost too faint to hear, yet Madoka feels them in her heart. "What would you do to keep your world safe?"

Madoka closes her eyes, the question squeezing her heart. "Become the world itself, so that I can't fail."

And with that, her path is decided.

No going back. Not now. Not ever.

Starlight settles in Homura's eyes like embers, glowing ashes in a dying hearth. "Then I have final question for you, Madoka." The look on her face is love itself as she extends a hand, palm up. "What is the force of a law that can be broken?"

Madoka shakes her head woodenly. _Don't ask me to do this. Please, Homura._ "Come join me, Homura. You're part of my world. You always have been." She's never meant words more, but they can have no tangible effect. She has no more power over her best friend than Homura does over her, and even if she had she'd have no right to exert it. "We grew together, and we wouldn't be who we are without each other."

In Homura's other hand an ebony bow materializes. Clasped in the apex of its arc is a soul gem, neither the magical girl's purple diamond nor the demon's sunray chess piece. It's a simple crystal no wider than a fingernail, a white diamond shaded with the faintest pink. It blinks once, and Homura is clothed in all black.

"I prove you can be challenged," Homura says. "I prove that you have a weakness, that you can be undone. While I exist, your wish fails." Standing straight, chin lifted, she is the very picture of defiance. "I will make sure of it."

The tide builds within Madoka and deposits her own bow into her gloved hands. The twined branches are alight with pink fire, a blazing bolt already nocked to its ethereal string.

Her Law must be upheld.

Time slows, shivers, stops once more.

Homura moves.

Then a chime rings out, and time returns only to vanish in a rush of searing ice and cleansing light.

###

 _Lavender-pink eyes, glittering with all the light in the universe, linger longingly on the curled-up, quietly sobbing form._

 _"Don't do this to yourself."_

 _The goddess meets a clear gaze of stern fire._

 _"She chose her path." Gloved fingers hook stray blue hairs behind the girl's ear, tips of cloth brushing her copper_ fortissimo _. "She walked it to the end, and there's no return from that place. You can't wait for her to come back, any more than she could expect it of you."_

 _Turning away from the broken demon, the goddess nods. "Yes."_

 _"Then why do you keep coming here?"_

 _The goddess rests a hand on her archangel's shoulder. The pristine white cape beneath her touch twinkles with stars. "Sayaka, after everything we've done and all we've been through, how can I not believe in miracles?"_


End file.
